Explore your future at Cal Day 2018

Cal Day — where UC Berkeley shows its stuff to the world, for free — is Saturday, April 21, all day (UC Berkeley photo by Elena Zhukova)

One day every year, more than 40,000 people from the Bay Area and beyond flock to UC Berkeley for Cal Day — the university’s free annual public open house. This year, as the University of California celebrates its 150th anniversary, prospective students and their families — along with current students, alums, faculty, staff and the general public — will be treated to the largest Cal Day yet, with more than 430 unique events taking place throughout the day.

Cal Day offers something for everyone — talks and demonstrations by experts, hands-on science for kids and their grownups, music and dance from many cultures, “Ask the Mathematician” or “Ask the Linguist,” robotics and basket-making and small tastes of the multitude of all the things that make Berkeley what it is. Some highlights include:

A welcome message for newly admitted students and their families from Chancellor Carol Christ. 8–9:15 a.m. at California Memorial Stadium.

Oski and the Cal Band will share in the Cal Day festivities (Photo by Noah Berger)

A Campus Conversation with key campus leaders focusing on how to thrive at Berkeley. Stephen Sutton, vice chancellor for student affairs, will moderate a discussion about finding community and the ins and outs of how get the most of your Berkeley experience. 3–4 p.m., Stanley Hall.

A performance of traditional Mexican music by the student-run Mariachi Luz de Oro. 11:15 a.m.–noon on the Genetics & Plant Biology lawn.

Healthy snacks and produce from the Oxford Tract will be served up courtesy of the Teaching Kitchen, the Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Student and Nutrition Advocacy Club. 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. on the Genetics & Plant Biology lawn.

The School of Public Health’s 75th Anniversary Research Showcase, which highlights 75 years of groundbreaking research in children’s environmental health, patient engagement, rapid response programs for dengue and Zika virus outbreaks, and machine-learning methods for better-designed interventions, among many others. 1–3 p.m. in Banatao Auditorium.

The Boston Pops will perform, with discounted tickets available by using the promo code BOSTON25 on the Cal Performances website. 8 p.m., Greek Theatre.

“Cal Day continues to grow,” says La Dawn Duvall, executive director of U.C. Berkeley’s Visitor and Parent Services in the Office of Communication and Public Affairs. “It’s an event that not only the entire campus looks forward to, but the larger community as well.”

Cal Day will also feature the unveiling of UC Berkeley’s new mobile app “UC Berkeley Mobile.” The app includes a live news feed from Berkeley News, an Arts and Design section, a schedule of campus events, a campus directory and map, a transit page with live shuttle updates, Cal athletics schedules and news, social media updates, video playlists and a list of numbers to have on hand in an emergency.

Tours of the campus — including the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the UC Botanical Garden, and the Berkeley Natural History Museums, among others — are available throughout the day.

A full list of events and activities can be found at calday.berkeley.edu and be sure to share your Cal Day experiences on social media using #CalDay.